Tuesday, January 15, 2013

what obama is doing with our Second Amendment Rights, right now - No more sale of any Guns without Government Permission

Good morning! I hope you weren’t up too late last night. It will be a bit colder and less gray today in Albany than Monday, with a projected high of 37. Gov. Andrew Cuomo remains at the capitol, but has no announced public schedule. His aides, including Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, continue their statewide Cuomovangelism tour today. Duffy will appear this afternoon at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. The Assembly is expected to begin debating a gun control bill at 10 a.m. SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher will give a speech on the state of our universities at the same time; the Board of Regents will also meet today in Albany. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is having a hearing in Manhattan on his proposal to require more political spending disclosure by charities. And there will be a legislative press conference later this morning about dense breast tissue. Here are this morning’s headlines…
State lawmakers reached agreement on a gun control package Monday that included a broader definition of banned assault weapons and tougher penalties for unlawful gun possession. The new law would ban ammunition magazines with more than seven bullets, require background checks for private firearm sales beyond immediate family and also expand Kendra’s Law, which allows courts to order treatment of the mentally ill. It would also require some mental health professionals to take proactive steps to prevent some patients from getting guns. (DN/NYT/NYP/GNS)
It’s unclear if the federal government will adopt a similar assault weapons ban. (DN)
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo lauded New York’s measure and waived the required three-day waiting period before the Senate’s 43-18 approval vote late Monday night. The Democrat-dominated Assembly, where the bill is expected to pass easily, is scheduled to take up the measure at 10 this morning. (TU)
Indeed, in the Capital Region, guns are already flying off store shelves. (TU)
Laura Nahmias: Seen by political pundits as a potential presidential contender, Mr. Cuomo has leapt into the national debate over gun control, responding to the school shooting in neighboring Connecticut and the deaths of two firefighters who authorities said were lured to a burning house near Rochester, N.Y., and fatally shot on Christmas Eve. The suspected gunman in the firefighter shootings took his own life as well, authorities said. (WSJ)
“This is a scourge on society,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday night, six days after making gun control a centerpiece of his progressive agenda in his State of the State address. The bipartisan effort was fueled by the Newtown tragedy that took the lives of 20 first graders and six educators. “At what point do you say, ‘No more innocent loss of life.’” (AP)
The bill was a key early test of the coalition that now control the state Senate, and split the chamber’s Republicans. Nearly all of the dozen GOP senators from New York City and Long Island voted for the measure, while Republicans from Upstate America voted against it. (Newsday)
Tom Precious: Senate Republicans met for nearly four hours behind closed doors, with members expressing concerns that the measure too broadly defines what the state will consider an assault rifle. Some senators, especially upstate Republicans in more conservative-leaning districts whose phones were ringing off the hook the last several days, were seeking to break the bill into pieces so they could vote yes on parts they support – such as expanded penalties for crimes committed with illegal guns – and oppose gun restrictions they say would violate Second Amendment ownership rights. (BN)
“We haven’t saved any lives tonight, except one: the political life of a governor who wants to be president,” said Republican Sen. Greg Ball who represents part of the Hudson Valley. “We have taken an entire category of firearms that are currently legal that are in the homes of law-abiding, tax paying citizens. … We are now turning those law-abiding citizens into criminals.” (AP)
The new law would allow people to petition to keep records of their gun ownership law secret. (SOP)
Here’s a closer look at what the bill does for mental health policy. (Mental Illness Policy)
Bill Hammond on how this plays into Cuomo’s get-stuff-done narrative: Contrast this hyperefficiency with the chronic gridlock that plagued Albany just a few short years ago. In 2004, a study by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice found that the state Legislature was the most dysfunctional in the country — and for good reason, since it was chronically late passing budgets, and its members seemed to get indicted every other week.//The Capitol arguably hit a new low between 2007 and 2010, when partisan bickering ran out of control, ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal and a botched coup paralyzed the state Senate for an entire month.//But there can be no question that things have changed radically for the better since Cuomo took over. He and the Legislature are not only handling budgets and other routine business in a timely manner, but also tackling big, thorny issues like guns — a major political third rail in Washington. (DN)
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is hoping to use his wealth to remake the GOP into something less beholden to the NRA. He appeared Monday at a gun violence forum in Baltimore alongside Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, considered a rival to Cuomo for the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination. (WP/Baltimore Sun)
A defiant Assemblyman Vito Lopez appeared in the Assembly Chamber for the first time this year, saying the cloud of scandal would not stop him from doing his job, and should not force him to step down. (TU/DN)
“My license plate number has gone from 20 to 137,” Mr. Lopez told a clutch of reporters gathered around his desk. “I guess that’s, you know, a setback, but that was never my issue.” (NYT)
The Cuomo administration is ignoring a law requiring early budget estimates to be made public. (TU)
SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher hopes to triple the system’s online enrollment. (GNS)
New York City’s school bus drivers are poised to go on strike. (NYP)
Albany County legislators rejected a bid to set up a state-supervised land bank, opting instead to spend some money on housing through a latent government fund. (TU)
State tax revenue is ticking up slightly. (GNS)
“Ball had a black eye when he was stopped by reporters. He later said, ‘My dog jumped up when I sneezed and hit my eye.’ ” (GNS)
Greg David wondered if Cuomo’s proposed minimum wage hike makes sense. (Crains)
Joe Lhota is sounding more and more like a mayoral candidate. (CapNY)
Republicans seeking the mayoralty are raising campaign cash. (DP)
Wyoming County Republicans are revolting against GOP committee chairman Gordon Brown. (BN)
No one seemed to know, or care, who was the technical Senate president Monday. (C&S)
Here are some national headlines…
Barack Obama said the United States is not a nation of deadbeats, and must raise the debt ceiling so it can pay its bills. (AP)
Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France. (WP)
States will get extra time to set up the insurance exchanges mandated by Obamacare. (NYT)
There were a record 349 military suicides last year — more people than died in combat in Afghanistan. (AP)
Happy Birthday to…
Rich Lamb of WCBS, Al Baldeo, Assemblyman Joe Lentol and Jim Thompson.
What you missed yesterday…
Read the full text of the gun control bill … a poll might have helped convince Long Island senators to vote yes … the 10 Assembly staffers who got the biggest raises … and Iberdrola shelved plans for a wind farm in the North Country.
Et cetera…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Clarence Thomas did something at a Supreme Court argument Monday for the first time in nearly seven years — he spoke.